William James

We must get by on what truth we have today, and be willing to call it error tomorrow.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

On Criticism Of When Mormons Celebrate Christmas

The comment was made:

"One of my stalkers has an obsession when it comes to Mormons and Christmas. He claims that because Mormons believe that Christ was born April 6 (or during the Passover) then for us to celebrate Christmas in December is just another attempt to deceive the public. When asked if he thought Jesus was born on December the 25th or when asked for evidence that all Christians believed this; he gave no supporting evidence.

True it is we believe that Jesus Christ was born during the Passover, but we do not have any "second" Christmas celebration in April. In fact the topic is seldom ever discussed.

If this is a conspiracy, of the Church to decorate Temple Square at Christmas, then that conspiracy extends into the homes of every Latter-day Saint.

This is what passes as "scholarly criticism" (as this person is a "Biblical Scholar" who teaches the Bible on a college level."

To which I responded:

Frankly, I don't think it matters what day of the year Christ was born. We worship him anyway, and given the very lengthy Christian tradition of celebrating his birth on what I understand to be the day of Winter solstice (in order to integrate Christianity into existing pagan traditions, and which date shifted to December 25 through inaccurate calendars), it makes sense that LDS would celebrate with the rest of Christianity on that day. As you point out, I doubt there is any consensus among Christianity on which day Christ was born. The Bible doesn't tell us.

This is yet another example of how narrow-minded fundamentalists focus more on non-essential differences than they focus on the big picture of what makes a "Christian".